


Personal Notes (18) The Date

by longhairshortfuse



Series: Carlos's Secret Diary [18]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 15:31:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1715654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairshortfuse/pseuds/longhairshortfuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ah c'mon, you all know what this will be about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Personal Notes (18) The Date

The last couple of weeks have been a hectic flurry of scientific emergency. I literally don't know where time goes here, in fact nobody does and most people are not even aware that time behaves oddly. I had the feeling again of having missed out whole days but without strange dreams or unexplained injuries so I must simply have been busy. We communicated briefly now and then, Cecil and I, by text and we had a kind of understanding, a truce maybe, where we could give each other enough real space and unreal time to decide what we wanted from each other. He didn't talk about me on his show and I only contacted him about science matters. I barely had time to consider personal issues at all because the lab was snowed under with things to measure and study. Not that any saying related to snow means anything here.

First, there was an enormous energy field so faint we barely could detect it extending over the entire built up area of the city. The effects of the energy field include, not exclusively: some minor and/or major rearrangement of items inside occupied dwellings, a sensation of something just out of sight scuttling across the ceiling, drainage problems, unexplained cleaning, small house fires, overnight appearance of a residue that looks like long silver hairs, unexplained data usage from internet downloads conducted when homeowners can prove they were not at home and subtle reinterpretation of well known allowed works of fiction such as the biographies of notable movie stars. However, the energy field seems to be more mischievous than malicious, as far as we can tell for now, so I gave two of our postgrads the task of monitoring it and drawing up a contingency plan in case the situation changes.

The covert spying on our team has intensified. We built a device that will spot any covert agents disguised as lab fittings but every night, wherever we hide it, we find it next morning on the main work bench, smashed into useless pieces and all the surveillance devices in the lab replaced without even being hidden. 

I twice worked up the courage to call Cecil. The first time on the pretext of asking him to warn his listeners about a time-based anomaly that might appear as an unexpected hole in their wall. The anomalies dissipated safely on their own after a few hours as long as nothing went through, for example a rubber ball or a small dog. One unfortunate homeowner was playing with his pet as the hole appeared in his wall, the ball sailed through instead of bouncing off solid plaster and the dog followed. The anomaly, once fed, converted approximately 6kg of organic matter into its equivalent in energy and doubled in area. This gave us a useful measurement of the behaviour of the anomaly but we had to evacuate the distraught family and quarantine the house until the hole disappeared. It took several days because I sent a team of postgrads in to measure the diameter of the anomaly and monitor its radiative energy output spectrum whilst throwing small objects of different materials into it, but being careful not to provide any more accidental and uncontrolled organic input. It has some potential application in materials analysis if a small anomaly could be stabilised and harnessed.

I called Cecil thinking that my call could start off as a professional science call and maybe the conversation might develop to something more. But when he answered with that long, luxuriously drawled "Hell-lo-ooo?" I gripped the phone so tightly that my hand ached and I lost the nerve to ask if we could meet. I relied on rehearsed, dispassionate science to get me through without losing the ability to form words. 

I decided I had to make more effort and planned my second call carefully. I wrote down on sticky notes things I could say like: there's a buzzing energy cloud heading our way, would you like to hear about it? and are you busy this evening? what have you been doing today? do you have plans this weekend? what kind of food do you like? and set them out on the lab bench before I called to tell him about the unusual energy cloud on the outskirts of town. 

Now I need to rearrange shifts because I have a date tonight. 

I hope the buzzing energy cloud is moving slowly. Really slowly.

*****

Cecil suggested we meet in the old town last night because he knows a good restaurant there. I spent ages on the trivia of choosing the right outfit, eventually settling on a shorter style pale blue lab coat that still had sufficient pocket space for some data logging equipment. We have been so busy lately that no opportunity for measurements can be wasted. 

I walked since the lab isn't far from the old town. I got to our meeting point a little early and lurked out of sight until Cecil arrived. I allowed myself the luxury of watching him for a minute. He stood in plain view leaning against his car, wearing a beautifully decorative tunic and furry pants that would have looked odd on anyone else but were exactly right on him, hair in a long, glossy plait swishing down his back. I came out from a doorway whilst he was looking the other way and touched his shoulder. He smiled, took my arm and led me away.

I don't remember entering the restaurant but it was really upmarket despite the limited menu. We ordered mushrooms and while waiting for them to arrive I tried out some smalltalk. I said I've been thinking, because that is what scientists do, then asked what he had been doing. So we chatted. Cecil talked easily, laughed readily and put me at ease. He was quick and witty, changed the subject frequently and never made me feel awkward about my silences. He kept the conversation light and only asked me about things I could talk about. Nothing about my past, his past, or anybody's future. He sparkled. A couple of times I left my hand on the table or stuck my leg out a bit but he didn't make physical contact. The table we shared, sitting opposite each other, seemed to form an immense barrier.

After an imaginary dessert, he paid. He insisted and said it would be my turn next time. My heart leapt. I hadn't bored or confused him yet. I smiled and deliberately flicked my deliberately overgrown hair out of my eyes as I stood up. Something fleeting passed across Cecil's beautiful face, for a few seconds he stared into my eyes with a look so intense that it brought the fizzing and fluttering out in force, then it passed and I wanted it back. I took the brick the waiter offered, smashed the window he gestured at and we climbed out. I looked back but there was no broken glass to be seen, for there was no window.

Cecil was quiet now and it was dark. He had told me about his job as a radio presenter and showed me how his portable microphone works. For something to say to stop one of my longer silences becoming difficult to break, I asked if he would like to help me with some science. He said that would be neat and I took his hand, nervous in case he took it away again. We headed hand in hand to Mission Grove Park so that I could take some bioactivity measurements from a few trees marked out by the postgrads as worthy of further study. One tree in particular gave very unusual readings so I clipped and bagged a short piece of twig for analysis. The tree responded by swinging a branch at me. I ducked and it just missed my head. I felt something brush lightly against my cheek, it might have been Cecil's long, delicate fingers. It might have been the tree. I wanted it to be Cecil.

I said I needed to get back to the lab with my measurements, also there seemed to be a problem with the black buzzing energy cloud which was spreading, moving faster than expected and I had to do something about that. We walked back to his car, not linking arms or holding hands and he drove me back to the lab in silence. He pulled over by the front door. He asked if I needed any help and, like an idiot, I felt awkward and said no, scientists are self reliant. I can't believe I actually said that. How pompous I must have sounded! I looked at his beautiful, downcast face for a moment, violet eyes hidden, unable to find the right thing to say to convey my thoughts and feelings. Instead I put my right hand up to stroke his cheek, turned his head and kissed him lightly on his mouth before scurrying out of the car and into my lab. 

I roused Ell and told her about the energy cloud. We cobbled together a device that we calculated would counteract its effects using a pair of high voltage signal generators and a length of galvanised chicken wire. We went out looking for buzzing energy creatures and ran at them so that the charged chicken wire passed right through. Usually, if we ran fast enough, this resulted in the person, human once more, falling over unharmed but with little memory of their ordeal. We boosted the kit with more power and a wider strip of mesh and attacked the source of the problem. As we ran through the energy cloud with the high voltage mesh separating us and the battery weight slowing us down, the cloud dissipated with a popping and crackling sound of all the fuzzy, buzzy energy people returning to normal. Or NfNV at least.

Ell asked for details of my date and called me a dumbfuck. She might be right. All I could do lying in bed was replay that kiss over and over and fret about could haves and should haves. I could have invited him into the lab to wait for me to get back, but he might have got bored. I could have given him my keys and asked if he'd wait for me upstairs in my apartment, but that might have been too forward for him. I could have subdued my inner control-freak and delegated the energy cloud problem to Gio who was on duty. I should have kissed him goodnight properly, asked if we could have another date soon. I could have texted or called, but as long as I didn't know how Cecil really felt I could pretend that it was fine.


End file.
